I didn’t
always dream of becoming a mom, but I did always want to be an aunt. My nephew was conceived almost a year after
my brother died, and like in the Book of Genesis, Rebekah came to Isaac
after the death of his mother, my nephew came to us after our loss to offer the
same comfort. A witness of God’s perfect
timing. In his nine years of life, he’s
gone through many different selections in terms of what he wants to be when he
grows-up, most currently he wants to be an architect because he loves to draw
plans and build things. Taking advantage
of his love for building, we have been working (for the past couple of months) on
learning about the California Missions.
First we did a saint chart, so that he would get a proper introduction
to the twenty-one missions and then select the one he most wanted to replicate. After, selecting Mission San Juan Bautista, I
ordered an online kit that promised the most from scratch building because I
know my little man loves to do it all himself.
Well, the kit was an absolute nightmare!
I recommend getting the one that already has all the parts cutout for
you to just glue. This one we had to
draw the pieces onto the cardboard, cut them using an X-Acto knife and then put them together. It took us a couple weekends to complete
because of the complexity of the construction, but in the end it turned out
pretty good. The best part is that we
learned a great deal about the missions and we spent a lot of time together. I am a teacher at heart and I always love
looking for activities that are not only fun, but are also educational. Below are pictures of the grueling process. We finally completed it last night!
The dreaded kit.
Cutting the plans and gluing.
A smile of encouragement.
A builder proud of his work.
We added animals and he's adding fields of the crops they produced at the mission.
It still needs bells and a few other details
Overall it was a huge success because we spent a lot of time together,
we both learned a great deal and had fun each step of the way (smile).
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